Stay Still
by ExistInspire
Summary: The Undertaking has taken place and Oliver must deal with the aftermath, in all its forms.


**Disclaimer:** I own nothing as it pertains to the Arrow cast but can I own Oliver for just a little while please?

**Summary:** The Undertaking has taken place and Oliver must deal with the aftermath, in all its forms.

**Authors Note:** It's not often I step out of my comfort zone, but ever since the finale aired not so long ago, I've had this idea playing around in my head, demanding to be written. What if Malcolm didn't die on the rooftop and is still alive and out there somewhere and Oliver has to find him and bring him to justice? So those questions poised, that is how this story is written (so this story isn't entirely canon). This is my first take on an Arrow fiction, so go easy, but I thank any and all of you for any response this fiction receives. I'm also leaving it open ended to see if it's something I can explore in a longer fiction. Enjoy! :)

**Musical Note:** Song used within this one shot is **blessthefall – Stay Still**. I do not own it, but damn it's a pretty good song for the subject matter.

* * *

_**Tonight is gone they'll tell you it's your time  
But I won't let them take you from me.  
And I never gave up on you.  
We all feel the same.  
(Can't stop this suffering in, in my head)  
Can't turn this one around **_

"_Did you kill him?"_

"_No."_

"_...Thank you."_

_I watched as his eyes closed, fading away from me and the levy broke within me._

"_No...Tommy...It should have been me. Open your eyes Tommy! Open your eyes."_

It had been this way for over a week now. Oliver Queen, resident billionaire by day; vigilante by night, reliving the same moment in time over in his mind.

Tommy Merlyn passing right before his very eyes and him being powerless to stop it.

With that vision though came equally saddening thoughts. He should have known that there would be more then one device. That Malcolm Merlyn, the mastermind behind the mass destruction of late would have planned ahead for just this very event and had more than one plan in motion.

Had he known this, or at least given it the slightest of thought then maybe what he was going through now wouldn't be happening at all. Both Diggle and Felicity had tried over the last week to make him see that he wasn't at fault for what had taken place but it was to no avail. He did blame himself.

Tommy was dead because of him and standing here now, in his room preparing for a funeral that was coming far too soon, well aware that the unpredictable Merlyn patriarch was still very much on the loose, he was at a loss as to what to do moving forward.

Oliver knew that he had to shake the way he was feeling before he reached the church for his best friends funeral. That in this period of mourning he had to become again something else. He had to be the strong one. Not only for his family and Laurel, but also for the city that had been ground zero for what Malcolm had put into play. The families that had lost love ones just as he had, and the ones that were now seemingly homeless and without hope.

He felt the knock before it happened. Those fine small hairs on the back of his neck rising as someone reached the door and put their hand to it, bringing the tight crisp sound through his entire bedroom. There was a time no so long ago that he wouldn't have been able to guess who stood on the other side of the door but given the events of late, especially surrounding his family the list had become significantly shorter.

"Come in."

His sister came into the room just as he allowed her entrance and she made her way over to him in such a short amount of time he was reminded instantly of why they had called her 'Speedy' to begin with. As the memory came to mind so did the compounding guilt again, as before his death Tommy had been the one to still call her by the name.

He felt Thea's arms wrap around him and he swallowed his natural instinct to recoil from the embrace. The last feeling in the world he wanted to succumb to in that moment was comfort and compassion. Not when he deserved far less than that given who he really was.

"Oh Oli! I don't know if I can do this."

Well there was something they could both agree on. After allowing the embrace to go on for a few moments, using his hands he pulled his sister away from him. Giving him just the right amount of distance, breathing room so that he could begin becoming the man they all needed and expected him to be.

He couldn't show his own weakness anymore. Not when there was so many people depending on him to be the one to carry them through their own pain and loss. As he separated from her though he felt the pang in his chest again. The pain he had to hide. The pain that reminded him of just how much he had lost when the device had gone off.

"I know you don't. I don't either but we have to...Tommy needs us to do this."

No, that wasn't right. What Tommy needed had nothing to do with a funeral. A bunch of people, some of which he barely even knew, coming together to remember him in the most final of ways. He needed to be here, and to instead be helping put the city and its residents back together the way he would have wanted to given the man that he had become.

He most definitely deserved more then what he was being given.

"How are you really?"

"I'm fine."

He could tell that his answer was not going to be enough to persuade his younger sister and that in this situation there wasn't much he could say that would. She knew him, as much as he hated to admit it and she most definitely knew that he wasn't fine. Who really could be fine when they had to go out and put to rest the only real friend he had ever known?

_**If I could pull you from the wreckage.  
We'd be alright.  
Oh Lord, don't tell me this is happening.  
If I could hold you for a second  
We'd be alright.  
Oh Lord, don't tell me this is happening**_

"Will you ever stop doing this?"

"Doing what Thea?"

"Hiding how you really feel away. Pushing anyone who cares about you away."

"That's not what I'm—"

"I know, I know. It's not what you're doing! Of course it's what you're doing Oli! It's what you've done every day since you came back from the Island."

She was right and he knew it but there wasn't anything that could be said in his defence that would make much sense. He couldn't tell her the entire truth about what had happened to him on the Island. Just as he couldn't tell her what his role had been in his very best friends demise. That if he had just given it a little more thought, then maybe none of this would be happening right now.

He couldn't tell her anything, or at least nothing of substance. He could only do what he had been doing for the past seven days, and that was push his feelings off to the side and do what he had to do for the people around him. Putting his focus where it needed to be and away from himself and the torture that loomed deep inside.

_**So when, does it start getting better.  
So far from home.  
The lights are fading out  
So just Leave this all behind **_

"I'm not pushing anyone away. I'm just doing what needs to be done. I'm taking care of the people that I love and care about."

"Okay fine big brother. So when you're done taking care of all of us, who takes care of you?"

"I don't need to be taken care of."

"Is that really what you think?"

"Yes Thea, that's what I think."

She was digging and Oliver knew it. He also knew that if he didn't put an end to this right now she was going to push him until he ended up saying or doing something that he shouldn't. He loved his sister more then anything in the world but he couldn't allow her, even for a second to get too close. He couldn't afford to let that happen and the consequences that it would bring. Just as it had with Tommy.

He hadn't been prepared for the avenue that she was going to take though and as she spoke, she went straight for the jugular. She might be young and to most on the outside looking in; innocent, but in this moment right now, the two of them standing, locked in a form of their own combat she was far from being that.

"What would Tommy think about the way you're handling all of this huh? The blast; the aftermath; his own death..what do you think Tommy would think?"

As strong as he wanted to be, as he was pushing himself to be he still hadn't been able to entirely turn off feeling where his friend was concerned. That even the mere mention of his name could spark a reaction, one so strong that if he gave in could take him off his feet in an instant.

He missed his friend. He missed the way they had been growing up together, the moments alone as well as the moments surrounded by the city and the people around them. He missed having Tommy there for advice, for guidance and more then anything, the love that came from having a best friend that might as well have been another member of your family. He missed having a brother.

Not having him here now, especially for a moment as big as this, a funeral it was ripping him apart from the inside out and as much as he wanted to be able to admit that out loud he knew that he couldn't. Tommy may not have wanted him to be this cold; this reserved and shut off from the world but it was just the way that it had to be.

_**If I could pull you from the wreckage.  
We'd be alright.  
Oh Lord, don't tell me this is happening.  
If I could hold you for a second  
We'd be alright.  
Oh Lord, don't tell me this is happening **_

"Tommy would find this entire thing to be a joke. He would be laughing at it and at us Thea and if you really think about it, you know I'm right."

"Maybe you are right. Tommy would find all of this to be some joke but he also would want more from you then what you're giving Oli and you know it."

"Well he's not here to argue that with me is he so just drop it."

It seemed that he had finally given her enough to where she would finally back off and leave him alone. Alone in his grief, in his pain and more then all of those, his guilt. Which was exactly what he wanted. To be alone in it because no one, not even those that knew of the lengths he had gone to in preventing it would understood just how deeply the well of his guilt ran.

"Fine. Have it your way. Stay frozen, cut off from the people that love you for the rest of your life if that's the way you want it but remember that once you've done all of you can for me; for Laurel, and the rest of the people that will be in that church honouring Tommy for the life he did lead and the lives he did affect, you're going to be on your own and until you let one of us in, we can't help you."

She made her way from the room, being sure to slam the door in finality as she did and after a few moments, sure that she had made her way completely out of ear shot, he finally allowed himself the chance to breath and take it all in and he felt the levy break from within him.

In mere minutes he was on the bed, his face buried in his hands and he just let the tears fall. An overload of emotions running through him, ones that he could never let another living soul see. Even when he had been attempting to rescue his best friend from the rubble, he hadn't allowed himself to fall apart until all life had passed out of his friends eyes. Only then could he break down the way that his heart wanted him too.

_**Oh, I never should have let you go.  
And take me with you.  
I'm dying on my own. **_

He was right in what he'd said to Tommy once he'd passed on. It shouldn't have been him laying in the rubble the way he had been. It should have been Oliver and no amount of honouring his friend, crying over the loss of him or even comforting the others that felt the loss would ever change it. The wrong man was dead and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

Oliver knew what he had to do but more then that what needed to be done. He needed to get himself back on track and he needed to find Malcolm and make him pay for what he had done, not only to the city that they all resided in, had come to care about but also for what he had inevitably done to his very own son. He had to make sure that Malcolm Merlyn paid dearly for the devastation that he had caused.

Vengeance, setting things right. The things he had held such a strong belief in when he had come back from the Island preparing to right the wrongs of his father. The things he knew how to do better then any of the regular human action or emotions. He knew what he had to do but first, he had to get through this and do so without breaking down the way he was now doing.

"I'm going to make him pay Tommy. He won't ever hurt anyone else again as long as I'm breathing."

As the promise fell from his lips he knew that it was nothing but the truth. He would indeed find and deal with Malcolm Merlyn because it was what he was good at. If he was honest with himself, he knew he also had to do this because it was the final piece in the puzzle his own father had left him that day on the life raft. He had come back to Starling City, and even the Glades with the task of righting his old man's wrongs and he fully intended to see that through to the very end.

The end of Malcolm Merlyn.

_**If I could pull you from the wreckage.  
We'd be alright.  
Oh Lord, don't tell me this is happening.  
If I could hold you for a second  
We'd be alright.  
Oh Lord, don't tell me this is happening **_

Oliver picked himself up from the bed, wiped the remainder of the tears from his eyes, and off of his cheeks and he made his way to the door. It was time to lay his best friend to rest. He had already said his goodbyes, quiet ones that he had said within these four walls. The funeral was just a chance for him to be there for the loved ones Tommy had left behind and to make sure that no more tragedy surrounded them. That was what Tommy would have wanted him to do and it was another thing he would be sure to see through until the very end.

Thea thought that opening up to people about how he felt was what his friend would have wanted but Oliver knew better. What he would have wanted was for someone to take of the people that had been left behind to deal with the fallout and that was exactly what he was going to do.

As he opened the door, not entirely paying attention to what may be going on in front of him, he felt his body run into something hard and as he heard the squeal, followed by a loud thud as the thing he had run into hit the floor, he brought himself back to reality and away from all the other thoughts clouding his mind.

Looking down he noticed that he hadn't just hit someone random, as in one of the staff or many of their relatives that had been on call for most of the past week without much of a break. No, he hadn't hit one of them. He had run himself and all of his upper body strength into the last person he expected to be at his door, especially given the day and what was now looming in front of him.

Collecting herself on the floor in front of him was none other then Felicity Smoak. An I.T girl from Queen Consolidated who had also been moonlighting in helping the vigilante track down his intended targets. The very woman that had been responsible for there only being one blast that had taken place that horrific night a week prior instead of the two that there should have been.

What she was doing here, outside his bedroom no less was beyond him but judging from the fact that she had collected herself rather quickly and was back on her feet and standing in front of him looking no worse for wear he knew that it wouldn't take long for him to find out.

"Felicity, what are you doing here?"

"Being mowed down by a linebacker for the Steeler's obviously."

"I'm sorry about that. I wasn't expecting to have anyone on the opposite side of the door. Or that I'd have to be paying attention for it."

Oliver watched as she took in his words and realized just what he had been leaving his room to do. It had been news within the Starling City community what today would be and surely as reality hit her with his own words she would now understand why his head hadn't been in the right place. Or at least he hoped that it would.

"You're going to the funeral. I can't believe I didn't even think about that!"

"Right, and I need to meet my sister downstairs so that we can head to the church. Is there something you're up here to tell me or can it wait?"

He studied her again as she seemed to mull over in her mind how important the information that she had come here to give to him had been.

Since Verdant had taken the hit in the blast the week before he had been working from home, and keeping to himself in the process other then having Felicity from the Queen Consolidated offices doing her part as much as she could to find Malcolm. Which was obviously the reason for her arrival at the Queen home.

"It can't wait. I wish that it could but its about Malcolm Merlyn."

Even the sound the mans name made the blood running through him run more heated. He should have done the right thing that night and taken him out instead of giving him the chance to get away and create even more destruction. He was almost afraid at what Felicity had to tell him. How much more damage could this man possibly do?

"What about him? Have you found him?"

"No...But Oliv—Mr. Queen, I found something else."

"What Felicity? What did you find?"

"Tommy wasn't an only child."

Oliver let the words roll around in his mind, letting them wash over him before he spoke again. If what Felicity was saying was true, it opened a Pandora's box in terms of what could be next for the illusive Malcolm Merlin.

"Tell me what you found."

"Malcolm had a daughter. A few years before he married Tommy's mother. It means that Tommy has a sister and I don't even think he knew about it."

The gravity of what Felicity dropped on him in that moment drove a knife even deeper into his heart. He had believed that the horror of what had happened only a week before ended with the death of his best friend but hearing her words now he knew that was untrue.

Tommy had a sister. Which meant that Malcolm, who had already proven himself to be the holder of one to many secrets and lies had allowed his son to die without knowing the truth about his own family. A feeling that Oliver himself could sympathize with given the tremendous load his own father had left him standing with.

As much as he didn't want to let his mind go there, he also knew that in this instance, not only for the sake of the people of the Glades and his own family he had to find out all that there was about this mysterious new Merlyn family member and he had to do it quick.

His earlier conversation with Thea came back into his mind. What she had thought that Tommy would have wanted and what needed to happen from that very moment forward and Oliver realized that she was right. At least on the surface. The fact that his friend was gone, was horrible, it was something that try as he might he couldn't just push down the way he had done in the past and that if what Felicity had just told him was true that in this case Tommy wouldn't want him keeping it all to himself. He was going to have to open up.

_**And I know I'm not the only one  
Don't tell me this is happening  
And I know I'm not the only one.  
Don't tell me this is happening  
Don't tell me this is happening **_

He looked up at Felicity then, bringing himself back to the reality of what he now faced in front of him. He would do the right thing by Tommy; and by everyone else. He knew what he had to do. His mission was clear.

"Find out where she is Felicity."

It may not be the way his sister wanted it, but he would honour Tommy. He would find his sister and he would bring her back where she rightfully belonged, even if he had to go through Malcolm Merlyn to do it.

He was not going to fail this city.


End file.
